Movie Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Title: Iron Man 3
Release Date: May 3, 2013
Director: Shane Black
Production Company: Marvel Studios
Summary/Review:

I could say that this is the best Iron Man film, but that would be damning it with faint praise. I find it puzzling that Robert Downey, Jr. and his take on Tony Stark are so good in collaboration with the other Avengers, but his solo movies are just self-indulgent excess.  And there is a lot of excess in this mess of a movie, just tons of stuff thrown at the screen to see what works.  Which makes it so weird that it’s actually somewhat entertaining.

Following up on the Battle of New York in The Avengers, Stark is dealing with PTSD.  This is the main plot of the first act of the movie, but then seems to be discarded along the way when it comes time to start blowing stuff up.  The second act gives Stark a kid named Haley (Ty Sympkins) for a sidekick, with some interesting surrogate father/son dynamics.  This is also discarded before the third act.  For much of the movie Stark is forced to work without an Iron Man suit, which is also an interesting approach as we get to see Downey, Jr. working things out with cleverness rather than technology.  But the absence of the Iron Man suit is atoned for in the explosive finale where he and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) win with a metric shitton of Iron Man suits.

The villain in this movie is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a mad scientist who sought Stark’s help 14 years earlier, but Stark rejected him, and so he becomes a supervillain to get revenge.  This is totally the premise of The Incredibles and I’m not the first one to observe this.  Killian and his henchpeople are pretty absurd and largely forgettable.  There is a character played by Ben Kinglsey who is at the center of one of the movie’s big twists, and Kingsley plays him so weird that it’s actually delightful.  Maybe they should’ve cast Kingsley as the Big Bad instead.

And so I’ve done it!  I’ve watched all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and by the time this post goes live, I will have seen Avengers: Endgame as well (and I’ll post that review tomorrow).

Rating: **

Podcasts of the Week Ending May 4th

30 for 30 Podcasts :: Ahead Of Their Time: Long Ball Soccer

This story tells of how Charles Reep used statistical analysis to create a new style of playing soccer, and doomed English football to mediocrity for a generation, because the math was off.

WBUR News :: Do Prosecutors Have Too Much Power?

Laws in the 80s and 90s that took away discretionary power from judges inadvertently gave those powers to prosecutors instead, and now America’s criminal justice system is not operating in the fair and just manner it should.  Author Emily Bazelon and Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins talk about the problems of overly powerful prosecutors and possible reforms.

BackStory :: Red in the Stars and Stripes

Comrades, socialism has a long and illustrious history in the United States.  Did you know that Milwaukee had a socialist mayor all through the 1950s?  I’m pretty sure it didn’t get mention on Happy Days.

99% Invisible :: Uptown Squirrel

Squirrels are so commonplace among urban fauna that most people give them very little thought.  But in the 19th century, squirrels were considered exotic and weren’t found in urban parks at all.  This episode explores how that changed and why it’s important to investigate scientifically the squirrel populations in places like New York’s Central Park today.

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Running tally of Podcast of the Week appearances:

• Afropop Worldwide – 1
• The Anthropocene Reviewed – 1
• BackStory – 2
• Best of the Left– 1
• Code Switch – 2
• Decoder Ring  – 1
• Fresh Air – 4
• Hidden Brain – 2
• Hit Parade – 1
• Household Name – 1
• Hub History – 1
• Memory Palace – 2
• More or Less – 1
• More Perfect – 2
• 99% Invisible – 8
• The New Yorker Radio Hour – 1
• On the Media – 2
• Planet Money – 1
• Planet Money: The Indicator – 1
• Re:Sound – 1
• Radiolab  – 1
• Radio Boston – 2
• 60 Second Science – 1
• Smithsonian Sidedoor – 2
• 30 for 30 Podcasts – 1
• This American Life – 1
• Throughline – 4
• To the Best of Our Knowledge – 1
• Tomorrow Society – 1
• The Truth – 2
• Twenty Thousand Hertz  – 2
• The War on Cars – 1
• WBUR News – 4
• We Need Some Milk – 1
• What Next – 1